It's a sweet life living by the salty sea.

I had to do a double check to make sure I hadn’t posted this one yet. This is a dinner that we’ve eaten pretty much every other week for the past 3 years, and still never tire of it! It’s relatively quick and easy dinner too, that doesn’t heat up the whole house.

My husband grew up working in Greek family restaurants, so he’s always loved gyros. I stayed away from them for a long time, due the flat grey meat that is usually lurking inside. Then, my favorite internet Greek resident, Elly, shared her recipe for chicken gyros. It was like a revelation! I made them once years ago, and our whole family has been loving them since.

The chicken is marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and oregano. Then grilled, sliced, and piled into a warm pita with plenty of cool, creamy tzatziki and fresh veggies of your choosing. I like lettuce, tomato, sliced cucumber, and red onion. Perfect for an evening dinner outside in the backyard, which we love to enjoy this time of year.

I usually like to serve a Greek (think garlic & oregano!) seasoned oven fry or Greek salad with them, but with the abundance of gorgeous tomatoes in my backyard right now I decided to make a cucumber tomato feta salad. Amazeballs! If you haven’t made this Greek favorite already, just go ahead and do so. I can say with certainty that it will probably go onto heavy menu rotation on your dinner menus!

Whisk together the garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, oil, oregano, and 1 teaspoon salt in a small bowl and add to Ziploc bag. Add in chicken pieces and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 hour, turning halfway through.

Preheat the grill (or pan, or broiler). Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides, and then grill over indirect heat until cooked through, about 8 minutes per side, depending what size/type chicken you are using. Allow the chicken to rest for a few minutes before slicing into strips.

Meanwhile, warm your pita bread. I have a gas stove, so I just spray them with a little bit of oil and stick them right on the burner for a few seconds per side. Top the pita with the chicken, tzatziki, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and lettuce.

I am having an aversion to meat handling these days so debated about making these but decided to use ground chicken so I just slipped the ground meat into the baggie to marinate – no touching! I haven’t eaten yet since it’s not quite dinnertime but looking forward to it! I have just started following your blog and love all the recipe ideas as I seem to be in a slump lately when it comes to dinner prep. Thanks! 🙂

I don’t like touching meat either…buy you some sterile, latex throw away gloves in the pharmacy area and toss them when you’re done…it’s the only way I can make meatloaf cause I can’t stand to toss the hamburger meat….

This was great, and easy. I did all my prep the night before, it only took 20 min to of cook time.
I cut my chicken and put in a container, mixed it threw the day and cook in oven on 500 for 20 min on parchment paper. When done, threw it on stove to seer (?) the meat, turned oven off and threw 6 pita in oven to warm. It worked great for me.

Where the marinade is so acidic, I would probably advise against doing that. I think you’d end up with chicken ceviche when you defrosted it. You could always marinade and cook the chicken, then refrigerate or freeze the chicken to use later in the week when you were short on time. The tzatziki can be made a day in advance, but would not work in the freezer.

I am soooo happy to have found your page through Pinerest.com (gotta love that site!). I am going to prepare a “Day From Home” Sunday for my husband’s Valentine’s gift on the 17th. He is from Cyprus and is SEVERELY missing home. I thought a full day of food and music (maybe some smells) would help. Your homemade pitas, chicken gyros and baked fries shall do the trick for lunch!

I made this for my husband’s family this weekend while they were in town. Everybody raved about it, especially the chicken. They kept passing the plate of sliced chicken around to nibble on after they’d had their gyros. I’ll definitely be keeping this recipe around. Thanks!

I made a Greek salad earlier this week so I “cheated” and stuffed that into pitas. My husband did, however, make the Tzatziki from the recipe you offered. Oh my heavens, it was good! I suggest that people make half or even one quarter of it unless they want a lot left over for other uses. Thanks for the recipes!

Found on Pinterest 🙂
Would I be able to cook the chicken in the marinade in the crockpot, then shred it instead of slice it? I have an aversion to handling raw chicken and prefer not to as much as possible, and really love shredded chicken. Just not sure if it would work with this… Thanks!

Nicole, the marinade is kind of acidic to be preparing it in a crockpot for hours. I’d just do it the way you normally cook chicken in the Crockpot, maybe add a little lemon pepper seasoning and oregano? Then use that! When toppped with the tzatziki, I’m sure it will be delicious!

Just made this for dinner and it was a huge hit! I also used your recipes for tzaziki sauce and pita bread and just blew my parents away. served it with Greek salad. The chicken was super moist and flavorful, the tzaziki sauce was awesome (even though I used fat-free greek yogurt) and the pitas were crazy puffy and delicious. Thanks for posting this!

I made this for our dinner tonight. Used Naan bread instead of pocketless pita bread (could only find pocketless pita bread with soy flour in it and I can’t have that, thus naan was the delicious alternative), omitted the fresh onion (we don’t care for raw onion), sliced the meat before marinating it, then sautéed the meat instead of grilling it. Added some crumbled feta to it when assembled. Made 1/4 to 1/3 the amount of tzatziki sauce and it was enough to cover 4 naan breads for the four of us. DEFINITELY will make this again!! Thank you for sharing!!

I absolutely love gyros and never thought of making my own before until I saw this recipe. The marinade for the chicken is perfect, it is so flavorful. In a pinch, Trader Joes has a really delicious tzatziki in the prepared foods section. I just give it a squeeze of lemon and even my grandmother, who is 100% Greek, approves.

I made this tonight and it was delicious! Made as described only I baked the chicken instead of grilling. I also made the tzatziki sauce as directed! I paired with lemon baked peeled potatoes and whole green beans, as I order it at Yia’s Yia’s. iwilI definitely make this again!

Absolutely amazing! Tasted identical to one you would get from a restaurant. I used pork instead of chicken and added some crumbled feta! Made it with roasted potatoes and onions. Perfect summer meal! Will definitely make this again!

I made this dish recently and absolutely loved it. I’m wanting to double in order to feed a larger crowd. I would like to bake the chicken this time. Any suggestions as far as temperature and for how long?

I made these the other night… They were delicious. I couldn’t find pita bread so I used Naan bread and with wrapping it in the foil it was easy to eat. The tzataiki sauce was awesome. I halved the sauce recipe and used plain greek yougurt. I didn’t have time to strain the yougurt, however, it still turned out pretty good. I will be making these again soon.
I served these with greek potatoes. The potatoes cooked while I prepared the gyros.

This recipe looks so great! Do you think it would be ok to mix the chicken with the marinade the night before and then cook it according to directions? I have a busy schedule and I am always looking for things that I can prep the night before to cook quickly once I get home in the evening.

Kelsi, I think the marinade is too acidic to start marinading the night before – you’d end up with chicken ceviche! Instead, I’d advise marinading and cooking the chicken breasts in advance, and then reheating in the oven or microwave to warm up right before serving.

Yes, you could definitely call it souvlaki. I have a souvlaki recipe here on the site (http://tideandthyme.com/souvlaki-gyros/), but I use pork instead of chicken. Technically, souvlaki can be any grilled meat 😉